Airline Horror Stories

As for a litany of specific bad flights, we have had a few over the last 65 years of flying, but what we most dread is what awaits us today. Particularly with the trend toward no assigned seats. Some carriers, mainly Southwest Airlines, do not allow "any" passenger to have a pre-assigned seat. Now having lived through the era of no assigned seats, I see this as passenger torment reemerging, however, a lot of Southwest faithful do not. Suffice to say, I will not book them for the very reason of no assigned seating.

But in order to avoid argument, picture yourself having a connecting flight with Southwest after getting off a 17 hour flight from somewhere overseas, you have only 25 minutes (legal connection) left after you find their gate. Only to find that most of the passengers have already boarded and for even those on board, there are no assigned seats on this aircraft, period, so you and spouse and maybe a couple of kids have no seats assigned, and you get on this rather full flight, to enter a passenger seating domain of "Every Man For Himself". Nightmare time! Nope, not for us, but if that meets your fancy you better not read any further than this:

Here is a good link eye opener for cheating tips on getting a good seat under these circumstances. Provided by long time Southwest faithful, be sure and catch the 59 additional tips in the comments at the end. Now this may be okay for some but not me, maybe back when I was 18 I would have had a different slant on it all, but not today. I stick with the real airlines anymore.

"Love it or hate it, Southwest Airlines has a unique seating process. Where most airlines will assign you an exact seat, Southwest gives you a boarding number and you can choose any open seat on the plane. Some enjoy choosing who they sit next to, but others don't like the added anxiety of not knowing where you will sit until you are on the plane. I wanted to run down some ideas on how to get the best seat possible on a Southwest Airlines flight. They have seemed to work out pretty darn well for me over the years." airlinereporter.com/2010/…

I was in the aviation game all my professional life. Today we cruise quite a bit and as a consequence still travel by air a lot. I recall the airline days when there was no such thing as "assigned seats". As time went by airlines tried many gimmicks to assign seats but the practice wasn't very effective until computers took over. After that the airlines were able to assign seats well in advance and any seating conflicts were greatly minimized. It was like a huge breath of fresh air for air travelers to be comfortable with the realization that a decent seat awaited them, particularly when close connections were involved.Now comes Southwest Airlines, with their "every man for himself" seating, a giant step backwards for the industry. It is sad to read about all these cheat tricks frequent users of Southwest employee in order to get good seats during Southwest's free for all boarding procedure or to assure nobody else sits next to them. As a result, Southwest leads the parade in the degradation of airline travel in my opinion, it is also sad to witness so many travelers rewarding regression. (this practice of their's has been around for quite a long time, not very widely recognized though, unfortunately it is gaining traction)

Since we travel quite a bit world wide, during our cruising, we often use the air provided by the cruise lines. When working out the details of connections through them if Southwest Airlines is named, we say, forget that itinerary.

Last year, Boyfriend was running late, Bags were late to get checked in and could not be guaranteed, line at security was not moving the way I would have preferred, and get to our gate to find the whole plane was boarded and doors closed. After some begging and anxiety attacks, somehow we got on the plane. We even got our bags in FL. I love southwest and appreciate whatever they did to let us on that plane.
Lesson learned... Leave without my boyfriend if he is not ready

On our way to our last cruise my husband and I got separated at the airport. There was some snafu when he was checking his luggage, and he missed our flight (we have an agreement that whoever can, get on the plane). Fortunately he was able to get on the next flight out and he didn't miss the ship. Also, we used the cruise line's transfer, so they were aware of his circumstances. This was one of those times that we couldn't leave the day before.

I just love to study airplane terror stories.

I was on Cathay pacific Airlines CX254 London Heathrow to HKG. The in-flight meal made me sick for about 3 days. Ive omplained to Cathay Pacific, maybe I'll get an upgrade certificate!